SERIES
Advent: Into His Marvelous Light
2016-12-11T11:00:00-06:00
22 At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me,26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.30 I and the Father are one.”
31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me;38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”39 Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. 41 And many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
How do we relate to the apparent distance between God’s lavish promises and our inability to understand them? In Genesis 15, that is Abram’s problem. God has made astounding promises to him, but Abram cannot fathom how the Lord could possibly fulfill these promises. The circumstances may be different, but the same tension exists in our lives. We're tempted to think that we must close the gap and that we are “on the hook” to deliver the performance that makes God’s promises a reality. But the story of Genesis 15 and the story of Scripture invite us to shift our gaze from what we must do to what God has done.
As Abram wrestles with lacking an heir, the Lord invites him to look up and number the stars. The Lord gives Abram a star-counting task that no person could complete, and then promises that the number of his offspring will be like the number of stars. Abram can neither count the stars nor have a child in his old age. All he can do is trust that the Lord will be faithful to His word. And so we read that Abram “believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6).
When we struggle to understand God’s promises, He doesn’t “walk them back”. No, God invites us to look up and realize that the promises are even more amazing than we thought. And when we wonder how we can know that God will deliver on these promises, He amazes us yet again. The covenant-cutting ceremony in Genesis 15 is a picture of the Lord's faithfulness to do everything necessary to keep His promises. The Lord, represented by a flaming torch, passes through the gauntlet of animal carcasses. Meanwhile, Abram is asleep. The Lord is essentially saying, “May what happened to these carcasses happen to Me if I don’t keep My promise...and if you don’t keep your promise.” The Lord puts Himself on the hook and promises to close the gap between His promises and our ability to grasp them.
As Abram slept, the Lord’s plans to redeem the world were unfolding. And as most of the world slept, the Lord Himself entered the world as a baby. Christmas means that the Lord has come to close the gap, to put Himself on the hook (and eventually on a cross) for His people’s salvation. The baby in the manger is the one who came to keep God’s covenant and to pay the price for those who could not. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we enjoy all the blessings of being God's covenant people, the children of Abraham, the children of God. So if we feel “on the hook” to deliver the perfect Christmas, we have missed the glorious news of Christmas. The Light has come to keep the covenant and break the curse. All of God's promises are "yes" and "amen" in Jesus Christ. If we believe that, it should be a very merry Christmas indeed.